Tell me about your 2 year old... please tell me I'm not the only one struggling!!!

[smileyboy]

My ds is a lively, energetiv boy. Was always a reasonably happy baby, never hard work really.

Now he's 2.6 and I feel like I am losing the plot! Please reassure me or offer tips cos I feel like I am doing it all wrong.

DS refuses to get dressed without a struggle/ screaming.

He doesn't want to get in the bath saying 'no I don't want a bath', then loves the bath and doesn't want to get out no matter how much warning him I do that it's soon time to get out. He then usually cries when it's time to get out.

Hi language is pretty good. Talks in sentences and seems to have very good understanding but he will often just ignore me if I ask him a question. I am unsure how to deal with it because I don't know if he's not listening or just ignoring people. I seem to have to answer a lot of questions for him when others talk to him although I wouldn't say he's shy. He'll happily engage people in conversation about what he wants but not really answer their questions or talk about what they want if that makes sense?

He seems to sulk quite a lot. Went shopping today and all the way round, every shop we went in 'I don't want to be in this shop mummy, I don't want to be in this shop mummy' over and over and over. He can repeat himself for litterally 10 minutes and no amount of cojoling or distracting seems to do any good. If I ignore him h just gets louder and cries. Most of today he seems to have had tears in his eyes or been on the brink of a tantrum and this is standard really.

He is very bossy when playing games 'mummy stand there' 'daddy, pick my bricks up' 'no put them in here' etc.. if you don't obey him he cries aswell which we just ignore.

He seems good at playing by himself but is just very very hard work and we seems to spend our entire day distracting him and having to tip toe around him.

He is very loving but only on his own terms. The other day a friend of ours was holding on to ds' hood and ds tried to get away as he as playing, ds then turned round and said 'let go of me pleae' he didn't so ds then burst into tears... I actually thought this was understandable as itwas a stupiud thing for my friend to do my everyone seemed really ahocked like ds was moody and asked if he was tired. I just said no he doesn't like being pulled around for no reason and left it at that. Is it really that unusual that he responded in that way????

Not sure what I am asking really... perhaps just ressurrance that it is a phase that will pass or maybe just wanting to know how I can help cheer him up a bit. So what's your verdict and and what's your 2 year old like? How do they respond to being restricted/ dressed etc?

thesecondcoming, have you got dds twin there?
dd jumps/bouces/skips/twirls constantly.
since watching angelina ballerina she announces im doing a plies and arrabesqu (sp) and then asks us to clap her wonderful performance.
the other day we were doing a jigsaw on the floor and he feel were bouncing form the sofa to the floor to the sofa to the floor and i said dd keeps still and she said i am
after dinner she runs through the house in a circle and has been known to do over 50 laps
its like caring for roadrunner

don't let people pull on his hood, that'd annoy anyone, (was it a reins substitute?) and he sounds like the model of restraint in asking for it to stop so nicely, which most 2 yr olds wouldn't manage in a month of sundays.

mine same (2 years 4 months)
it's exhausting...
mine however tends to scream or make moaning noises in shops instead of repeating phrases....not sure which is more annoying!!!

i have a 7 week old dd and when they are both screaming I have learnt to tune out, smile and think this WILL PASS!!!!!

I have to try and reason with him on EVERYTHING, with dressing I let him make clothes choices (I pick out 2 tops- he chooses one, then trousers etc and when neither i distract then dress him in front of lazytown!!) and for bath we have different toy every day which helps as he gets excited (and let's me entice him in)- then when he gets out we talk about what pre bed book he wants to read- or I produce a fave non bath toy......sometimes dosen't work....but it helps!!!

today been very hard!!!

Smiley - if you added frequent hitting (of me and other children)to your OP, you would have a pretty on the money description of my 2.4 year old. This thread has cheered me up no end, esp Gill79 and the bread & marmite scenario.

my 7year old seriously NEVER went through the 'terrible two's' My daughter however is a different story, she isnt as bad as some kids but she has started to bite when things arent going her way or she has been told to do something she doesnt want to do. she is also screaming while playing with my son and often pulling things off him hitting him if he takes something away from him. She is a very loving child and always says sorry normally without being told. This shows me she knows exactly what she is doing is wrong. If i have told her off for the same thing 3 times in a short amount of time i do punish her by taking her away from the situation with nothing to entertain her and leave her on her on her own for 2 minutes often crying sobbing "im sorry im sorry"!! This biting thing is a worry and i want to know how to nip it in the bud before she starts it during playgroup towards her friends....thanks

Sounds normal to me.
DS will be 3 in 2 weeks time, but the last 18 months have been a nightmare. Getting a bit better now, but he has turned into Mr Contrary. Constantly contradicting himself. Mood swings, violent outbursts, tantrums, then two seconds later nice as pie & all loving and cuddly.
Its exhausting. I just keep hoping it will get better soon. I know he is not like this at nursery or when he is at friends houses. He keeps the worst of his behaviour for me and DP.

ps - Lizbo:
My DS bites still.
It tends to go in phases, and I am afraid to say I have gone from just shoving his own hand in his mouth and making him bite himself every time he gets me, to actually nipping him back. I always swore I'd not do this, but in certain moods he constantly goes for me. Like a rabid dog. I find myself actively shirking away from him when he approaches me in case he is about to bite me, when he actually may just be giving me a cuddle. Its bad. I am just really hoping another child will take a chunk out of him soon so he can see how much it hurts & stop doing it.
He has done it alot at nursery, but fingers crossed, just does it to me and DP now.

I have a 4 year old DD and could have written the OPs post when she was 2. I had to leave a playgroup once after she bit someone, she used to cause chaos in shops by running out the door with various goods or hiding so I would panic and thought I had lost her. She was terrible at sharing and hardly ate a thing and spent much of her day on the naughty step. Looking back I think alot of it was tiredness as she dropped her daytime nap quite early. Just take a deep breath. It will pass. Be consistent; kind and firm and all will be well. My DD is now very good at sharing and plays nicely and is for the most part is a pleasure to be around so it will get better. She now has a very annoying habit of ignoring what I ask her to do though. Theres always something.

Just read the OPs post again. The bath and dressing thing used to happen with DD as well. Look at the bigger picture. If he doesnt want a bath today it doesnt really matter. My DS is almost 2 and often misses a bath when he says he doesnt want one. You might also find choices are helpful with the dressing issues. For example, Do you want to wear the red top or the blue top and then try and make the dressing fun with tickling etc. He's a little young but you could try a reward chart or what I found usedful was to carry stickers around and when she did something good she got a sticker on her top. As for the shops my DS hates shopping as well. Hes OK while the buggy is moving. My answer is to minimise shopping until hes older. Thank God for internet shopping.

Hurray!
Thought I was the only one with a two year old who over Xmas and New Year seemed to have about ten tantrums a day.
The only way I can get him to get dressed/undressed is by letting him watch Thomas the Tank and this is by no means foolproof.
He will sometimes respond to reasoning - ie, you must wear your coat if you want to go and play in the snow - but only if its something he wants to do, not to pick up his sister from school!
Its the jekyll and hyde stuff that is the most stressful, he'll seem perfectly happy one minute, then catatonic with rage the next because you looked at him funny!

Feeling better after reading these other posts, at least I'm not alone

Smileyboy, in response to your original post, your boy is a total and completely NORMAL 2 year old. Enjoy the bits you can, keep calm as much as possible, and try to laugh at the insane bits.

My ds is now 3.7 and is a lot easier to deal with, you can bargain and reason a lot more, and their sense of time gets better, so if i say "you need to put your coat/shoes on so we can go or we will miss xxx" he understands the concept of this. 2 year olds just don't get that at all, they seem to think that playgroup or whatever will always be on whenever they are ready! So i just lived on toddler time for 18 months, allowed an extra 15 minutes for EVERYTHING in the day. You may get less done, but its a lot calmer.

Other things that i was told and proved useful:
have a small pot of something like breadsticks ready for supermarket trips, takes them a while to munch through something a bit drier while you zip round.

explain what is happening during the day, helps if you say it as if its their choice "well, what shall we do this afternoon ds? what about the park? shall we go to the park after Tescos?" gives them an idea of whats happening and something to look forward to after the shop trip.

fresh air and exercise every day. twice a day for my ds or bedtime was, ahem, not good.

def pick your battles. don't see it as giving in or winning, see it as a discussion, would you like to be ordered about all day every day on every little thing?give them some scope to make choices. "ok so you don't want a bath. well, can you help tidy up all your toys instead then? or would you rather have your nice bath with your boats and we'll ask daddy to tidy up?" suddenly bath seems like better option. ps on the hair washing thing, we got ds a pair of swimming goggles to wear and then it was a breeze as he realised the water/shampoo couldn't get into his eyes. also, get them used to the shower, so if they are too tired for a full bath, sometimes they will tolerate a quick swish under the shower. unless they've rubbed their entire dinner into their hair, they really don't need a full wash every day.

many tantrums headed off at the pass with tickling, dancing to loud music, pulling silly faces, phoning daddy at work and shouting something silly down the phone (check he's not on speaker mode first), anything that generally makes them giggle. take advantage of the fact that distraction can work (sometimes). when they get older they get wise to this and distraction doesnt work after a while (sorry to say).

Just to add, my LO had a full-blown tantrum after he woke up from his nap yesterday. No rhyme or reason to it, he just wanted to howl. So after going through all the possibilities (cuddles, kisses, offers of his favourite toys, distractions) I left him to it. I stayed with him and occassionally said 'it's ok sweetheart', but basically I let him cry it out. Then I sat with DD and did a jigsaw and after about 10 minutes of screaming and rolling on the floor he magically stopped and came and joined in.

Of course this wouldn't be a good tactic to adopt in a shop or on the street, but it worked in the safety and comfort and privacy of his bedroom! Sometimes I wonder if we (I) go a bit OTT with trying to stop things like that - sometimes they just want to get it all out.

As I said to dp when dd aged 2yr 9mnths got up at 5.35am this morning and went into meltdown until I agreed to take her downstairs, "this too shall pass."

thesecondcoming - I just read 'Siblings without Rivalry' which is by the 'How to talk' people as I have baby due in July. It seemed to have some good ideas and might help your little terror! From the sounds of things I don't think she's going to talk kindly to a sibling. Nor is my ds, which is why I read it.

One of the hardest things is the behaviour of some friends/neighbours who have known ds (now 2.4) since birth and are convinced he's an absolute angel. If they ever had wayward toddlers themselves, they have forgotten.
One day one of these catches him floods of tears in the street as they are leaving for work. "Oh poor little chap what happened?" they say, looking at me (busy ignoring him) accusingly, and obviously convinced he has just suffered major injury. I can't even begin to explain that horrid mummy has just refused him a second chocolate biscuit/switched off TV/explained we can't go on the train today.
I suppose I should be delighted he's so popular locally; flipside is however anything less than wreathes of smiles and peals of laughter always ends up feeling like nasty mummy's fault. & I too am just waiting for the knocks on the door from tipped-off social workers.

Just wanted to say it's a relief and a terror to read this thread! My DS is only 15mths but it's starting already. We've had a few run-ins at playgroup with other kids where there has been snatching/shoving/full on melt-down when he isn't allowed to do the former. I feel like all the other kids are behaving except mine!! At home we've got food fussiness, tantrums at bedtime because he doesn't want to go into the cot and general stubborness.

Relieved to hear I'm not alone, bracing myself for what's to come!

I tried the shopping list with the children today and it waas fantastic!